No ANC, you will not shift the crime crisis onto citizens

17 July 2022

Escalating incidences of serious violent crime across South Africa in the past week have caught the ANC government and its failing Police Minister seriously on the back foot.

As the ANC government and its failing Police Minister face up to the systemic and fundamental shortcomings of the SAPS, they have taken this week to shift much of the responsibility for crime prevention onto community citizens.

The DA will not allow the ANC to feign helplessness as it now sidesteps its national governance obligation to keep South Africans safe.

Today the ANC Premier of Gauteng appealed to Gauteng citizens to do the work of the SAPS by identifying criminals in communities. Then, the ANC itself in a national statement called on “all South Africans to find and prosecute” criminals.

These calls are dangerously close to fanning flames of vigilantism and they are convenient deflections of the obligation to prevent and investigate crime by the SAPS.

South Africa cannot tolerate the failing national Police leadership any longer – this is why the DA this week launched a fight to get Minister Bheki Cele removed from office by President Ramaphosa.

It is time for the SAPS to be lead by a serious, and skilled Minister, who can make the serious changes needed to get the SAPS working.

The DA petition is climbing very fast in support online, and the growing numbers show that South Africans agree: Bheki Cele must go.

The DA stands resolutely against any shift of blame or responsibility for policing to the citizens who the SAPS ought to be serving, not relying on to fix their failures.

Failing governments blame citizens, and demand citizens serve them. Today’s poor show from the ANC reveals its own failures, and South Africa deserves better.

Issued by Andrew Whitfield, DA Shadow Minister of Police, 18 July 2022